Mortality
by Lady Shaye
Summary: What might have happened if Briseis hadn't left with Paris. One-shot unless I get reviews asking for more. Maybe...


Yeah...I don't own Troy. I also don't own any Greek mythology. I DO, however, own my own DVD copy of Troy. Does that count?

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><p>Briseis watched Agamemnon fall to his knees slowly, and the gods forgive her, she smiled a cruel smile for killing the man. Two of his soldiers seized her, clanking around in their armor, and she had no idea where they expected to put her. Their king was dead, the coward and fool that he had been.<p>

One soldier held her, and the other commanded rather uselessly, "Hold her," raising up his blade. She prepared for the bite of his sword to sink deep into her flesh.

Whose orders would they follow now? Achilles, perhaps? Her heart ached at the thought of him. She wondered where he was.

It was just then that he came.

Whipping past the soldiers too quickly for their slower reflexes, he slit the throat of one and sunk his sword into the gut of the other. He reached for her ever-so-slowly, and she remembered how angry she had been the last time she had seen him. Angry, and sad. _How much before it all ends? How much death? Why did the priestess have to fall in love with the soldier?_

But she forgave him for Hector's death, and she smiled a smile only he could see as he reached to help her up from where she had fallen. He smiled back, briefly, perfectly, and it made her heart nearly stop. Her gaze left him as he began to help her up.

She saw Paris.

Her pretty cousin, the one who'd been lucky enough to find love in the heart of the most beautiful woman in the world, and Briseis hated him for it and loved him for it at the same time. It was because of him that Troy, her beautiful home, was falling apart at the seams, and because of him that Hector and Achilles' cousin had died. It was because of him and that beautiful, too-sweet (the kind of sweet that tasted bitter) woman that this had happened.

But it was because of them that she met Achilles. That she met and made love to and fell in love with him.

But then her pretty cousin pulled an arrow back against his bow, and the arrow was released. Time moved too slowly, and she screamed "_No_!_" _like she was scolding a small child, and death and blood reeked around them as the arrow flew ever-so-slowly. She wished it would end, she wished she could move faster and stop the arrow with her own heart, but she couldn't.

And Achilles fell the ground, gasping for breath as he landed on one knee. Blood began to seep from his sandal as the arrow went through his ankle. Achilles began to rise, murder in those perfect blue eyes, but Paris drew more arrows from his satchel.

"_Paris! No_!" she heard, rather than felt, herself beg from her cousin, but he drew back more arrows and struck her love in the chest. One, two times Paris struck her soulmate's heart. "No! _No_! Stop, please!" she screamed running up to Paris in an attempt to stop him. "Paris, _don't_!"

It was like he was striking her heart, for she wept bitterly.

Paris drew back the final arrow, just as Achilles raised his weapon, and struck.

_No!_ her heart screamed, and she began to run to her love.

He fell to his knees, ripping the arrows out from his chest slowly, painfully.

Finally, finally reaching Achilles, whose eyes-those crystal clear, perfect, icy blue eyes that made her fall apart and rise back up again like a phoenix from the ashes-bore right through her, even as he was dying. She saw and felt him put his hands on both sides of her face, and a tear streaked down her cheek. He brushed it away.

"It's all right," he whispered, "it's all right." She shook her head, careless of the ongoing destruction around them. He was _dying_. _Dying. It could never be all right. It could never be all right again. Ever, ever again. Was this what the gods felt when they learned they could never die? Why do they envy us,_ she thought bitterly, thinking of Achilles' words from when they had first truly met.

"_I'll tell you a secret, something they don't teach you in your temple. The gods envy us. They envy us because we're mortal, because any moment might be our last. Everything is more beautiful because we're doomed,"_ he had said.

_How could the gods envy this?_ she thought in horror, still shaking her head defiantly, defying it all. He couldn't die. How could he die, her hero, her love, her Achilles? He was invincible, immortal. How could he be pulled down by this cowardly prince's arrow? It wasn't fair, it wasn't right. The two most important men in her life-her cousin Hector and her beloved-were dead and dying, and the man who had convicted Achilles to death was of her own blood. _How could they envy this tragedy, this hatred, this revenge, this death? This is not beautiful. Everything's not beautiful because we're doomed. This isn't beautiful, this could _never_ be beautiful. He can't die!_ She felt another tear streak down her face, and he brushed it away in silence, in his own acceptance. _I won't accept this_, she thought.

She felt him wrap an arm around her neck, but this was different from when he had tried to choke her. There was no pain in his eyes; only serenity. And it was perfect. It was perfectly one hundred percent wrong. Pain coursed through her.

He took a deep breath of her hair, then drew back from her and looked her in the eyes. She had such beautiful eyes. Everything was beautiful about her. She stroked his face, remembering the feel of him on top of her as they had become the embodiment of love. She felt him under her fingertips, and her heart nearly broke in the pain and injustice of it. _Why must I love a man, only to lose him? There is no good in battle, no good in immortality. I just want a lifetime with you! _she cried out in her mind.

"You gave me peace," he murmured to her, and her heart shattered, "in a lifetime of war." She wept at the statement, but he only wiped away her tears. She could almost hear him saying, _Don't cry for me, love. We'll meet again, in this lifetime or the next. I believe in the gods. And they do envy us for more reason than mortality: they envy this love. Our love. It will last for more than one lifetime._

One last kiss shared between them: his lips felt like fire and ice on hers. He was the balance in her life: he was war, she was peace. But from what good had war ever come? She tasted his sweetness, mixed with the blood and sweat on his mouth. He tasted too sweet to be a killer, but now it was a bitter kind of sweetness. She drank him in, wishing he would taste her like he had before, in those beautiful nights of passion: where she writhed under him, enjoying his fierceness, enjoying how hard and stubborn and strong his kisses were. She wished he would kiss her with that strength and fearlessness now, just so that she could fight him back as she had done those nights, just so he could smile that amused grin and kiss her harder to make her scream in that hut. She wished, she wished.

He parted his lips from her, and she tasted the saltwater of her tears taint the smell and taste of him. She wished to brush away her tears. She wanted to spend forever with him; why was he being taken away from her? She wasn't going to move. She longed for another kiss, but knew it could never be given. Not in this lifetime. Not in this world.

The gods were cruel and coldhearted for giving her this beauty, then stealing it away.

She resisted the urge to lick her lips, wanting to taste him forever. She wouldn't eat or drink ever again if she had to, just so long as she could taste him for the rest of her days. It would be slow and painful, but it would be blissful, secure with the taste of him on her mouth…even if he was dead as she tasted his sweat, his blood, his bitter sweetness, his fiery passion. It was still there, even if his kiss had been gentle. He had wanted to be gentle with her. Achilles, capable of gentleness? Yes. Yes. He had loved her gently. The kisses had been hard and demanding, but when he made love, he made her feel invincible. If that was how he felt on the battlefield, she could forgive him for shedding blood. She could forgive him for anything anyway. She loved him so fiercely.

"Briseis," she heard Paris say behind them, "come."

Her love looked at her, his eyes serene and peaceful, and she wanted to scream to him that it wasn't fine, it wasn't peaceful. Dying wasn't peaceful. It was unfair, and all she wished to do was wrap her hands around Paris's neck and never let go. She wanted to watch him suffer as she suffered, as Achilles suffered now, as his cousin had suffered, as Hector had suffered. She wanted him to suffer for being in love with Helen, just as she was in love with this beautiful dying man before her.

"Go," he whispered to her.

"No," she murmured, "I'm staying with you. I won't leave you, Achilles."

"Go," he replied in a stronger voice, "I won't have you stay here. Troy is crumbling. Your home is gone, burned to the ground."

She wrapped her arms around his neck, and whispered past his beautiful, shoulder-length blond hair into his ear, "My home is with you. I would have stayed in that little hut on the beaches of Troy for the rest of my days…if I could only spend that time with you."

"We will have time together soon, love," he comforted her gently as she wept into the place between his shoulder and his neck, where her face fit so perfectly. They fit so perfectly, every piece of them, and she wanted to never let go. She would never let go.

"Not here," she gasped in-between sobs, "not in this world."

He pulled her back gently, as though she were the hurt one. "No," he replied, "no, no, not in this world." He kissed the top of her forehead lightly. "In a far better one, where the gods can envy us from a smaller distance."

"The gods cannot envy this."

"They will not envy this, this death. But they will envy us and our love."

"Please," she begged, and though she was looking into his eyes, she didn't know whom she was begging: him, the gods, Paris, Hector, everyone she'd ever known and loved that had died or brought this great tragedy upon her.

Paris spoke again. "Briseis-"

She cut him off, lifting herself from the ground and turning to face him. The wounds were deep and slow and painful-her love had a few moments more. Her cousin, the fool, held out his hand, as though she would take it and consent to be his pretty little cousin again. Fool. "You wicked, wicked prince!" she shrieked, reaching him and grabbing him by the neck. "I hope you rot in hell!"

"Briseis-" he choked out.

"You fool! I love him," she wept, letting go of his throat. "I love him," she sobbed, sinking to the ground, and Paris fled like the coward he was, leaving her alone on the ground to cry for her misfortune, for these tragedies that so afflicted her. None that she had thought that she had deserved. Was this truly the price of love? Death? This pain, this sorrow?

She heard noises, thinking they came from Achilles, and she turned to him, only to find that he had crawled to her weakly, wrapped himself around her. She sat there, feeling him place his chin atop her head with her back to him. He felt so right. His breath moved her dark hair, and his words stirred her.

"In another life," he whispered, "we will have more time together."

"In another life," she murmured back, "you will not be a soldier any longer, nor I a priestess of Apollo."

"Yes," he consented, "simply two lovers in the Underworld. Surely Hades will grant us that."

He placed a hand on the side of her head, stroking her hair with his left hand, and she reached up and grasped that hand with her own palm. Clenching it tightly, she looked up at him as he removed his chin from her hair, and she smiled a bittersweet, tragedy-struck smile. He gave her a calm, gentle smile.

"You are passionate in everything except death," she whispered, not mockingly.

"Yes," he agreed, "I am. I have awaited death so long, wondering what it will bring me. Will it bring immortality to my name? Or will it just give me a place in the Underworld where all the men and boys I have killed can take revenge? With Patrocleus at the head of the mob."

Briseis reached up to Achilles, stilling his lips with her other hand, and she turned to face him all the way, one hand still clasped in his and the other on his beautiful lips. "Shush," she replied, "no mob awaits you in the Otherworld. Your cousin will greet you with a smile and an embrace, and all the men you have killed will understand what you did it for."

"A greedy king," he replied quietly, and she saw a stray, rare tear slip past his eye.

She brushed it from his cheek with her thumb, her hand still clasped in his. "No," she said softly, struck by the beauty of him. He had a hard, angular face now lined with sorrow and death, but he was so _so_ beautiful: his crystal, icy blue eyes; his soft hair now soaked in sweat and fear and her tears; the smell of him, of sweat and blood and passion; his body, muscled and perfect and hers. Just as she was his. She had been wrong. He _was_ passionate, even now, even in death. It was just a gentle kind of passion, a quiet kind of passion. "Not for a king," she whispered, "but for love. The gods knew that we were destined to meet in this life."

"The gods," he mocked her in that endearing tone of his, "you believe in them too much."

"The gods can do anything," she said, "just like you. They can…they can bring life and death and war and peace and…and they can kill you." She looked up at him, and kissed him fiercely. He tasted her longing on her lips, and gave into her need with his hard, fierce, stubborn kiss. He bit down on her lip, placing his tongue delicately down her throat, and it was a perfect kiss and she was losing herself in it, and…

He drew back, gasping for breath and looking up at her. She sank lower to his level, and her right hand cupped his chin. "I love you," she whispered, crying silently.

"As I love you," he said in a voice she had never heard him speak before: he was quiet and passionate and flawless all at once. "Don't cry for me, love," he spoke the words she knew he would eventually speak. "Our time together is unlimited. I'll meet you at the gates to the Underworld. I'll wait for you. I'll wait for you."

Her smile would have melted him, and he would have collapsed if her left arm wasn't wrapped around him, supporting him as her right hand cupped his face up to meet hers. Her lovely brown eyes, her dark ringlets that framed around her hard fine cheekbones, her skin that was smooth and fit him so perfectly…it made him want to sink into the ground. He wanted for her to be the last thing that he ever saw.

"Don't make me wait too long," he gasped, and she broke out into an unwilling smile, laughing beyond her tears. He smiled, too; her laugh was the cure to his disease, the answer of love to his hate, the reason that he now finally understood the villainy of war.

"I won't, my love," she said softly.

With the smile still etched onto his face, his hand stilled from stroking her wild dark hair, and his eyes stopped blinking.

Delicately, afraid that she would hurt him, Briseis kissed the corpse of the man she loved and laid him on the ground so that he was still. Her eyes searched wildly for the cure to her pain, and she found it: one of Paris's arrows that Achilles, her love, had pulled from his chest. She reached for it weakly, and succeeded in wrapping her long, slender fingers around it. Frightened that she would be condemned for suicide, she prayed to the gods. _Surely, Apollo, you understand what love is. Surely you know what it is like to lose one of your mortal lovers to the cold grip of death, _she begged. _Let me release myself from this torture. Have Hades grant me passage so that I might be with Achilles. Let me be with my love for eternity. Let me be free, please, Apollo, I beg you. I am your eternal servant, esteemed by many other priestesses, and I have betrayed you in my loss of my virginity, but I beg you, lord, I beg you: let me be deserving of this one true, final request._

Thunder crackled, as if her lord and god above had consented to this final plea, and Briseis pulled the arrow closer to her. She squeezed it so tightly that it drew blood from her palm, a shallow but long cut. She would not live long enough for it to be infected. Achilles lay sprawled beneath her, his cheek touching the cold stone, though his body was still warm underneath her. She felt the warmth rise up and touch her, and it was like Achilles, with his strong, large, rough, warm hand touching her. He made her feel warm. He made her feel alive.

But soon, she wouldn't be alive. And that granted her peace. She now understood the serenity of dying: the passion was still there, but she could save it for her time with her love, and she thanked the gods for that.

She raised her hand, positioning herself so that she would lie on top of him in death, and sunk the arrow deep into her chest without a moment's hesitation or a second thought. The pain blossomed in her chest just after the blood began to bloom from her. It had struck her heart, she knew, and she had only seconds. Briseis collapsed on top of Achilles, the necklace he had given her rolling out from her hand as she died. Her head was buried in his chest, and she felt his blood soak into her hair, but she didn't care. Blood was all that mattered in this war: blood and desire for power. She cursed Agamemnon, and felt peace overrule any other curses she had wanted to cast only seconds before.

She lay on her side, her left cheek touching his cold armor. But it felt good to be touching him, even if he wasn't in this body any longer. She prayed fervently that wherever he was, she would be with him soon. Her hand scrambled around for the seashell necklace he'd placed in her palm only a few nights before, and she reached it. In the weakness of death's cold embrace as it wrapped around her, she threaded the necklace around his cold throat that had been barking out cries of war only moments ago. Or was it hours ago? It felt like hours. It felt like an eternity had passed since he had saved her from Agamemnon's soldiers.

"I love you," she whispered into the chest of the man she still loved, would always love. "Achilles."

As soon as her task of tying it around his neck was done, she made a choking noise as blood bubbled in her throat. It didn't spill over her lips and onto his fine armor, and she closed her lips and breathed her last as she lay atop the body of her eternal love, the name of her love on her still-warm lips.

Odysseus found them lying there together. "It was as forbidden a love as Helen and Paris," he remarked to another soldier. "It was doomed from the start, and he knew it, even if she didn't."

The other soldier spat in superstition. "Shall we burn them with the rest of the dead?"

The rest of the dead, Greek and Trojan, had burned in a pile bigger than small mountains, with King Agamemnon among the corpses. They had been burned with coins on their eyes and nothing else, not even the blood wiped from their lips.

"You don't know Achilles if you speak with that insolence," Odysseus snapped. "This man was the best soldier and best man I ever knew, and he's done more in his life than you'll ever expect to. They will be burned alone. They will be placed together in death, as they should have had the chance to do so in life. Now, they can only spend their time under Hades' rule." He fished out four coins from his satchel. "Leave me to prepare their bodies."

Twelve days later, in a burial befitting a king, Briseis and Achilles were burned together in a pyre larger than Odysseus had ever seen. _If they ever tell my story,_ he thought as he lit the pyre, watching the two lovers burn in death,_ let them say that I walked with giants. _

The flame caught and began to spread. Odysseus stepped down, watching the two lovers as their clothing began to catch fire. He had never witnessed such a quiet burning, for none present spoke. All of the survivors, Trojan and Greek, had come to see them go to the Underworld, as they watched the two lovers burn. No one spoke, everyone barely breathed. Odysseus held his breath in the hopes that Achilles and Briseis might jump from the flames and rejoin them. But, alas, as with all burnings, they remained dead.

_Men rise and fall like the winter wheat...but these names will never die. _

Briseis, who hadn't even been taken out of her royal and priestess robes, burned in grace, with her dark curled hair befitting a princess and her eyes peacefully closed. Achilles still lay in his warrior armor, for none would touch him and remove him from Briseis's clutch. Even in death, she still lay atop him, and none would move them.

Andromache, clutching her child, wept openly for her deceased husband's cousin. Her son did not cry, only looked around solemnly as if he knew in his infancy that something somber was occurring: the death of the invincible warrior and his love. Helen held onto Paris tightly, but neither of them sobbed. Helen wished that she had known Briseis better, so that the apology she sent to the woman in her mind did not sound so false to even her own ears. "They could have been happy in their own blissful solitary existence. She would have been a happy priestess, he a fulfilled warrior," she whispered to Paris. "I caused this."

"No," he comforted her, knowing that a small part of her was right. "It would have been an empty life for the both of them, just as mine would have been without you. Briseis was never meant to be a priestess." He felt guilt stab him. Even though Achilles had killed Hector, it was his love for Helen that had really killed his brother. And his unjustified anger that had killed the man who brought happiness to Briseis. He knew Helen was partly right.

Odysseus sighed as flames consumed the lovers and the smell of ash, blood, and sweat rose around them. Another scent burned in the air: Briseis's perfume, which had confirmed her identity as royalty and which Achilles had so loved.

_Let them say I lived in the time of forbidden loves: Helen and Paris, Priam and the love for his son Hector, and, most importantly and most infamously, Achilles and Briseis._

The two lovers embraced in death as their corpses burned.

Briseis kissed him fiercely, and her warrior lover kissed her back. In death, they were happy. In death, no tragedy marred love. In death, love could not be broken. Her heart had healed at the sight of him in the Underworld, and she felt a presence. She felt a voice, a deep, frightening voice, speak in their minds, granting them passage and letting them be with each other. Hades had forgiven her suicide and his many murders, and had let them be together in the name of love.

They kissed passionately, and in death, they loved.


End file.
